When this thread was started, I was hoping to see some good news to post here. To tell the truth, I haven’t really been looking, and just happened t stumble upon this. Anyone read better news lately?
[quote=“NYT: Delays Rebuilding Afghanistan”]Islamuddin Ahmadiyar, a 22-year-old student, remembers the excitement in this dusty farming hamlet in central Afghanistan when American contractors broke ground two years ago.
A one-story, 12-room health clinic, nestled between apple and mulberry tree groves, was to replace the mud hut where the village’s lone doctor labored through Afghanistan’s quarter-century nightmare of Soviet occupation, civil war and Taliban rule.
But the clinic remains an unfinished shell, one of 96 American-financed clinics and schools that a New Jersey-based company was supposed to build by September 2004. To date, nine clinics and two schools have been completed and passed inspection, according to the company.
The company, the Louis Berger Group, says progress has been slowed by the requirement to use Afghan construction companies, forcing it to hunt, sometimes vainly, for those that can work fast and to high standards. A design flaw is also forcing it to replace or strengthen the roofs of 89 of the buildings.
“If you play just the numbers game, we’re going to look bad, no doubt about it,” said Thomas Nicastro, a Louis Berger vice president. “But if you look at this as a development issue, then you have an understanding of what we’re trying to do.”
Four years after American-led forces ousted the Taliban, the United States has spent $1.3 billion on reconstruction in Afghanistan, intending to win over Afghans with tangible signs of progress. And indeed, there are some. But to Afghans, the Turmai clinic is emblematic of what they see as a wasteful, slow-moving effort that benefits foreigners far more than themselves. “The aid that comes from other countries for the Afghan people, it’s not going to the Afghan people,” said Mr. Ahmadiyar. “It’s being wasted.”
The stakes are enormous. Afghans, famed for briefly tolerating and then viciously turning on occupiers from the British in the 19th century to the Soviets in the 1980’s, are increasingly disenchanted with the American-led reconstruction program.
Meanwhile, the United States hopes to withdraw 4,000 soldiers from the country’s south next spring; a drop in overall foreign aid is expected; and Taliban attacks are rising. So both Afghan officials and foreign diplomats are assessing what has been achieved during the past four years, and many are disturbed by what they see.
Government ministers here say that the foreign consultants and contractors the Americans pay for are producing shoddy work and achieving little - though charging dearly.
“Assistance is coming to Afghanistan, but we don’t know how it is spent, where it is spent,” said Amin Farhang, the Afghan minister of economy, who oversees foreign assistance programs.
And a July report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, sharply criticized the American reconstruction effort and the department leading it, the United States Agency for International Development. It said inconsistent financing, severe staff shortages and a lack of oversight slowed the efforts.
“We really need to reform the external assistance in this country,” said Jean Mazurelle, the World Bank manager in Afghanistan. “We are not in the position to provide the result on the ground that the people of this country are expecting.”[/quote]
